The step on the stair

by Anna Katharine Green

XXXIV

“Miss Bartholomew wishes me to say that she would be glad to see you at dinner.”

I stared stupidly from the open doorway at Haines standing respectfully before me. I was wondering if the note I had just burned had come from him. He had shown feeling and he had not shown me any antagonism. But the feeling was not for me, but for the master he had served almost as long as I was years old. So I ended in accepting his formality with an equal show of the same; and determined to be done with questions for this one night if no longer, I prepared myself for dinner and went down.

I found Orpha pacing slowly to and fro under the glow of the colored lamps which illuminated the fountain. Older but lovelier and nobler in the carriage of her body and in the steady look with which she met my advance.

Suddenly I stopped dead short. It was the first time I had entered her presence without a vivid sense of the barrier raised between us by the understanding under which we all met, that we were cousins and nothing more, till the word was given which should release us to be our natural selves again.

But the lift of one of her fingers, scarcely perceptible save to a lover’s eye, brought me back to reason. This was no time for breaking down that barrier, even if we were alone, which I now felt open to doubt, and my greeting had just that hesitation in it which one in my position would be likely to show to one in hers. Her attitude was kindly, nothing more, and Edgar presently relieved me of the embarrassment of further conversation by sauntering in from the conservatory side by side with Miss Colfax.

Remembering the scene between them to which I had been a witness on the night of the ball, I wondered at seeing them thus together; but perceiving by the bearing of all three that she was domiciled here as a permanent guest, this wonder was lost in another: why Orpha should not sense the secret with which, as I watched them, the whole air seemed to palpitate.

But then she had not had my opportunities for enlightenment.

A little old lady whom I had not seen before but who was evidently a much esteemed relative of the family made the fifth at the dinner table. Formality reigned. It was our only refuge from an embarrassment which would have made speech impossible. As it was, Miss Colfax was the only one who talked and what she said was of too little moment to be remembered. I was glad when the meal was at an end and I could with propriety withdraw.

Better the loneliest of rooms in the dreariest of hotels than this. Better a cell—Ah, no, no! my very soul recoiled. Not that! not that! I am afraid that I was just a little mad as I paused at the foot of the great staircase on my way up.

But I was sane enough the next moment. The front door had opened, admitting the Inspector. I immediately crossed the court to meet him. Accosting him, I said in explanation of my presence, “You see me here, Inspector; but if not detained, I shall seek other quarters to-morrow. I was very anxious to get back to my desk in New York, if the firm are willing to receive me. But whether there or here, I am always at your call till this dreadful matter is settled. Now if you have no questions to ask, I am going to my room, where I can be found at any minute.”

“Very good,” was his sole reply, uttered without any display of feeling; and, seeing that he wished nothing from me, I left him and went quickly upstairs.

I always dreaded the passage from the second floor to the third,—to-night more than ever. Not that I was affected by the superstitious idea connected by many with that especial flight of steps—certainly I was too sensible a man for that, though I had had my own experience too—but the dread of the acute memories associated with the doors I must pass was strong upon me, and it was with relief that I found myself at last in my own little hall, even if I had yet to hurry by the small winding staircase at the bottom of which was a listening ear acquainted with my every footfall.

Briskly as I had taken the turn from the main hall, I had had time to note the quiet figure of Wealthy seated in her old place—hands in lap—face turned my way—a figure of stone with all the wonted good humor and kindliness of former days stricken from it, making it to my eyes one of deliberate accusation. Was not this exactly what I had feared and dreaded to encounter? Yes, and the experience was not an agreeable one. But for all that it was not without its compensations. Any idea I may have had of her being the one to warn me that the key invariably carried by my uncle on his person was not to be found there at his death, was now definitely eliminated from my mind. She could not have shown this sympathy for me in my anomalous position and then eye me as she had just done with such implacable hostility.

My attention thus brought back to a subject which, if it had seemed to lie passive in my mind, had yet made its own atmosphere there during every distraction of the past hour, I decided to have it out with myself as to what this communication had meant and from whom it had come.

That it was no trap but an honest hint from some person, who, while not interested enough to show himself openly as my friend but who was nevertheless desirous of affording me what help he could in my present extremity, I was ready to accept as a self-evident truth. The difficulty—and it was no mean one, I assure you—was to settle upon the man or woman willing to take this secret stand.

Was it Clarke? I smiled grimly at the very thought.

Was it Orpha? I held my breath for a moment as I contemplated this possibility—the incredible possibility that this made-up, patched-up line of printed letters could have been the work of her hands. It was too difficult to believe this, and I passed on.

The undertaker’s man? That could easily be found out. But why such effort at concealment from an outsider? No, it was not the undertaker’s man. But who else was there in all the house who would have knowledge of the fact thus communicated to me in this mysterious fashion? Martha? Eliza? Haines? Bliss? The chef who never left his kitchen, all orders being conveyed to him by Wealthy or by telephone from the sick room?

No, no.

There was but one name left—the most unlikely of all—Edgar’s. Could it be possible—

I did not smile this time, grimly or otherwise, as I turned away from this supposition also. I laughed; and, startled by the sound which was such as had never left my lips before, I rose with a bound from my chair, resolved to drop the whole matter from my mind and calm myself by returning to my task of looking over and sorting out my effects. Otherwise I should get no sleep.